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REPAIRING THE BREACH 



HISTORICAL DISCOURSE, 




PREACHED IN PLYMOUTH, MASS., 



AT THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY 



PILGRIM CONFERENCE OF CHURCHES, 



MAY 1 G , 1855. 



JOSEPH S. CLARK, D. D 




< m s 'm ®M< m>—*m (m< m^—m 




REPAIRING THE BREACH 



HISTORICAL DISCOURSE, 



PREACHED IN PLYMOUTH, MASS., 



AT THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY 



PILGRIM CONFERENCE OF CHURCHES, 



MAY 1 &, 1855 



BY 

JOSEPH S. CLARK, D. D. 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 42 CONGRESS STREET. 
1855. 



*t 



AX* 



North Scituate, May 18, 1855. 
Rev. Dr. Clark, 

Dear Brother, — I herewith transmit the following vote, unanimously passed at our 
recent meeting of Conference, viz : — 

Voted, That the thanks of the Pilgrim Conference of Churches be presented to Rev. 
Dr. Clark, of Boston, for his very able and instructive Discourse, just delivered before 
this body, and that a copy be requested for publication. 

DANIEL WIGHT, Jr., Scribe. 
Rev. Joseph S. Clark, D. D. 



Rev. Daniel "Wight, Jr., 

Scribe of Pilgrim Conference, 
Dear Sir, — Relying more on the judgment of the Pilgrim Conference, than on my 
own, I yield to their request, as communicated by your favor of the 18th instant, with the 
earnest hope that the Discourse, imperfect as it is, may suggest to abler minds the idea of 
doing a similar service for other sections of our State. Rarely has the grace and the 
glory of God been more signally displayed since the Christian era commenced, than in the 
planting and preservation of the Congregational churches of New England, — their rise to 
the rank of model churches, under the embarrassments of a wilderness life, and their 
subsequent recovery from a lapsed condition, under still greater disadvantages. Grati- 
tude demands some suitable memorial. 

" "Why should the wonders he hath wrought, 
Be lost in silence, and forgot ? " 

The time has come, moreover, when the facts, not only in the earlier, but in the later 
history of these churches, can be stated without acrimony, and be heard without preju- 
dice. Let them be collected and given to the world, not in denominational pride, nor in 
theological controversy, but in unaffected honor to Jesus Christ, " who hath wrought all 
our works in us," and whom God has given "to be head over all things to the church." 

Yours truly, J. S. CLARK. 

Boston, May 21, 1855. 



DISCOURSE 



ISAIAH lviii. 12. 

THOU SHALT RAISE UP THE FOUNDATIONS OF MANY GENERATIONS ; AND THOU 
SHALT BE CALLED, THE REPAIRER OF THE BREACH, THE RESTORER OF PATHS 
TO DAVELL IN. 

In recovering this fallen world to holiness, it hath 
pleased God that each successive generation of his people 
should have a part to act, as workers together with him. 
One labors during the short day allotted to him here, and 
another enters into his labors, who is soon to be suc- 
ceeded by another still. As in rebuilding the cities of 
Judea and the temple at Jerusalem, so in repairing the 
moral desolations of earth, some are called to lay the 
foundations, others to build thereon ; while it may be 
reserved for future ages to realize the grand result to 
which the labor of ages past has been directed. 

The progress of Christianity in every kingdom and 
commonwealth, where it has made any progress at all, 
illustrates this feature of the divine administration. The 
Apostles founded churches in various parts of the Roman 
empire ; but it was not till centuries after they had gone 
to their rest, that the throne of the Csesars was occupied 
by a Christian emperor. Other generations had risen up 
and entered into their labors ; had built upon their foun- 
dations ; had lived, and suffered, and died, defending the 
faith which the Apostles preached. 



4 

The gospel was carried to the isle of our pagan ances- 
tors in the sixth century. But why did not its light go 
out as suddenly there, as in Asia Minor ? Because the 
foundations thus laid by one generation, were raised up 
by another. The work of one century, instead of being 
left to crumble again to the dust, was carried forward in 
the next. 

The gospel was brought to these shores by the Pil- 
grims* of 1620. It was the Great Charter of that 
new empire which began with their landing on Plymouth 
Rock. Its authority was their law. It controlled their 
private dealings with each other. It was seen in their 
public and political negotiations. It sat with the magis- 
trate* on the bench, and held before him the scales of 
eternal justice. Such were the men whom God selected 
from the old world, when he was about to establish his 
kingdom in the new. And the foundations which they 
laid correspond with this description of their character. 
The civilized world has paid the tribute of its admiration 
to the wisdom of their counsels and the grandeur of their 
designs. But where are those " master-builders " now ? 
Resting from their labors. Their sepulchres are with us. 
The great moral enterprise which they commenced, if 
ever consummated, or even kept from going back, must 
be taken up by other hands. Their unfinished works, 
showing here and there sad marks of decay, meet the eye 



* Rev. Joseph Hunter, in his Founders of New Plymouth, (p. 5,) — 
a book of deep antiquarian research and great value, — objects to this appli- 
cation of the word " Pilgrim," as " philologically improper." " A pil- 
grim," says he, " is a person who goes, in a devout spirit, to visit a shrine." 
Yet he owns that " there is the same corrupt use of the word in the Eng- 
lish version of the Scriptures : — 'And confessed that they were strangers and 
pilgrims on the earth' " No intelligent person understands this word in any 
other than the New Testament sense, when he finds it applied to the 
founders of New England; for he knows that they themselves meant just 
this, and nothing more, when they accommodated that Scripture to their 
condition. The criticism seems hypercritical, and will hardly avail to 
change the popular terminology. 



wherever it turns; while the provrdence of God, in a 
thousand ways, is calling on 2is to enter into their labors; 
to raise up the foundations which they so piously laid. 

In obedience to this call, the Pilgrim Confkrence of 
Churches, composed chiefly of their descendants, and 
occupying the ground which holds their dust, was organ- 
ized twenty-five years ago,* and has ever since been 
laboring, in accordance with the third article of its Con- 
stitution, " to promote a spirit of active piety," like that 
which imbued the Pilgrim Fathers — with what success, 
its published " Documents " show.f 

At the end of this first quarter of a century, it may be 
useful to pause, and review the past, and see what lessons 
of wisdom it affords for our conduct in the future. I 
propose, therefore, on this occasion, briefly to sketch the 
religious and ecclesiastical history of the towns within 
the territorial limits of this Conference, following the 
course of church-extension, from the landing of the Pil- 
grims at Plymouth in 1620. 

These towns are now twelve in number, namely, 
Plymouth, Kingston, Duxbury, Marshfield and Scituate, 
bordering on Massachusetts Bay ; and South Scituate, 
Hanover, Pembroke, Hanson, Halifax, Plympton and 
Carver, lying one tier back. Three of these, namely, 
Duxbury, Pembroke and South Scituate, though they 
have no church in connection with this Conference, yet, 
having members of churches that are thus connected, 
and falling as they do within its geographical bounds, are 
properly included. 



* April 27, 1830, at the meeting-house of the Second Parish in Plymouth, 
(Manomet Ponds.)— See Docum. Pilg. Conf. No. 2. 

t The publication of these Documents commenced in 1848, and four 
numbers have been issued at irregular intervals. Each number, except the 
first, contains a historical sketch of one church within the bounds of the 
Conference. They are henceforth to be published annually, and will be an 
accumulating fund of historical information. Should all other similar 
bodies do the same, the results would be of inestimable value. 



Without going over the water to the little town of 
Scrooby, in the north of England, where, in 1602, a small 
band of Puritans was formed into an Independent or 
Congregational church, at the house of William Brewster; 
without following that persecuted band on their exile 
path to Holland, in 1608, and thence in their pilgrimage 
to these shores in the winter of 1620, we begin at this 
last named date and place. Then and there was planted 
the first church in Plymouth ; the first within the bounds 
of this Conference ; the first in New England. The orig- 
inal number of members probably fell short of seventy- 
five ; for the whole company, including children and ser- 
vants, were only one hundred and one, of which forty- 
four died before the end of March. Perhaps forty is as 
high as we can reasonably set the number of church 
members in the spring of 1621. 

Can we wonder that twelve years elapsed before this 
first church was able to send forth a second ? The won- 
der is, that it did not itself expire. In no way can we 
account for its continued existence, but by referring to 
the depth of that piety which had been refining in the 
furnace of affliction for twenty years ; the firmness of 
that faith which had not faltered under the imposition of 
fines and in sight of faggots ; the strength of that broth- 
erly love which had grown up between those who, after 
having so thoroughly learned to bear one another's bur- 
dens, found themselves in exile three thousand miles from 
their native home, " for the word of God, and the testi- 
mony of Jesus." 

But the death of nearly half their number during the 
first four months of a wilderness life, was not so hard 
to bear, not so depressing to the church, as the "hope 
deferred " of seeing their beloved pastor join them in the 
spring, with the rest of his flock. This was confidently 
expected when they parted at Delft-haven on the previous 
July. But having passed through the fiery ordeal of 



ecclesiastical proscription, that Moloch of Episcopacy, 
they were now to encounter Mammon. The "merchant 
adventurers " of London, many of whom had invested 
funds in this colonizing scheme merely as a money- 
making business, fearing that so much Puritanism would 
injure the speculation, found pretexts for keeping them 
back." And it was not till the May-flower company, 
poor as they were, had actually bought out those mer- 
chant adventurers at an exorbitant price, that they could 
fetch the rest of their friends from Leyden ; which they 
joyfully did in the summer of 1629, at an additional cost 
of £550, besides the expense of supporting them fourteen 
months after their arrival, till "a harvest of their own 
production " was gathered. Taking into view all the 
circumstances, this must be regarded as one of the great- 
est triumphs of Puritan principle, and as illustrating one 
of the loveliest traits in the character of our Pilgrim 
Fathers. It more than verifies the statement of their 
confiding pastor to Sir Edwin Sandys, when, negotiating 
for their passage to New England, he said, " We are knit 
together as a body in a more strict and sacred bond and 
covenant of the Lord, of the violation whereof we make 
great conscience ; and by virtue whereof we do hold 
ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other's good, and 
of the whole by every, and so mutual." [Robinson's 
Works, vol. i. p. 40.] 

> But he who gave utterance to this noble sentiment, and 
who had done more by his life and teachings than any 
other man to foster its growth, was not permitted to see 
this grand exemplification of it, in the re-union of his 
long-divided flock. To their unspeakable grief, he died 



* Their chief objections were no doubt founded in their attachment to 
Episcopacy, whose " markett would be mared in many regards," by Mr. 
Robinson's presence and preaching ; but the ostensible and popular argu- 
ment against it was the one above stated.— Felt's Eccl. Hist. N. Eng. 
pp. 59 and 84. 



8 

in Holland, March 1, 1625, after a short sickness, at the 
age of fifty. As Moses was released from his charge, 
when he had conducted the children of Israel within 
sight of Canaan, so fell the leader of this Pilgrim band, 
when, through long wanderings and many perils, he had 
brought them within a step of their destined home. Nor 
did the tide of his influence, more than that of Moses, 
stop at his death. It has been rising ever since, and will 
never ebb. The practices and opinions of John Robin- 
son, more than those of any other man, have shaped the 
institutions of New England, though he never set foot on 
her soil. So deeply had his congregation drank at the 
fountain of his wisdom, and so fully had they imbibed 
his spirit, that the Plymouth church, without his pres- 
ence, and for nine years without any resident pastor, still 
preserved the polity which he had prescribed, and was 
the model after which the Salem church and the Boston 
church were formed, notwithstanding their repugnance to 
"the separatists" when they left England. It was, in 
fact, with the slightest possible modifications, the polity 
which, in 1648, was embodied in the Cambridge Plat- 
form. 

But to proceed with the narrative. When the May- 
flower company left Holland, Mr. William Brewster, a 
ruling elder in the church at Leyden, was expected to fill 
the office of teacher also, but not of pastor — ministering 
the word, but not the sacraments, till Mr. Robinson should 
come. Being a man of liberal education and of most 
exemplary piety, he did this to the great edification of his 
hearers. Still, for the church to be deprived of the 
Lord's supper, and their children of baptism, through 
successive years, was a painful deprivation; and when 
their adversaries in England reproached them for this dis- 
use of the sacraments, they feelingly replied : " The 
more is our grief that our pastor is kept from us, by 
whom we might enjoy them ; for we used to have the 



Lord's supper every Sabbath, and baptism as often as 
there was occasion of children to baptize." [Mass. Hist. 
Coll. vol. iv. p. 108.] 

At length, in the spring of 1624, the merchant adven- 
turers, adding insult to injury, undertook to meet this 
pressing want, by sending them, not Mr. Robinson, but 
Mr. Lyford, his exact opposite, with the cruel aim of 
thereby more effectually keeping the pastor back, and of 
turning his church over to Episcopacy. His subtle 
intrigues, however, were exposed ; and being convicted 
also of gross immoralities, he was expelled the colony. 
In 1628, these same adventurers sent another by the 
name of Rogers. Him the Pilgrims found to be de- 
ranged mentally, as Lyford was morally ; and they sent 
him back the next year at their own expense. 

These incidents of trial are worthy of our notice, as 
illustrating not only the faith and patience of our Fathers, 
but also the tough, cohesive texture of the church polity 
which they had adopted. Congregationalism, in their 
hands, was any thing but that " rope of sand," which 
some in later times have described it. It was a govern- 
ment designed by its frame rs to be administered, not only 
over the church, but by the church — by the whole body 
of believers composing it, and not by its officers alone — 
as it was most efficiently administered by the Plymouth 
church, when questions of the gravest character were 
continually arising, with no pastor to help them. And 
such was the inherent strength and self-adjusting power 
of its machinery, that it would have worked just so, if 
Elder Brewster and both the deacons had been taken 
away too. 

In 1629, Mr. Ralph Smith, having just arrived at Salem 
in company with Skelton and Higginson, was called to 
settle at Plymouth, its first resident pastor. He is described 
in the church records as a " grave man," but " of low 
gifts and parts." After two or three years they employed 
2 



10 

the celebrated Roger Williams to assist him ; who, in the 
same records, is called " a young man of bright accom- 
plishments, but of unstable judgment." Like many a 
church since, they found less room for choice, than they 
had supposed, between these opposite qualities, — found 
that brilliancy, coupled with indiscretion, was not much 
better than moderate talents with gravity. As neither of 
these men seemed adapted to follow the learned and judi- 
cious Robinson, they were both dismissed in 1635 — the 
one as " not sufficiently gifted for the work ; " the other 
for " beginning to vent some errors which were offensive 
to the church." To show, however, that the Plymouth 
people were not, after all, so hard to please as these 
records might seem to intimate, I quote the testimony 
which they give of Mr. Smith's successor, who was 
simply a plain, good man. " It pleased the Lord at last 
to send Mr. John Reyner, an able and godly man, of a 
meek and humble spirit, sound in the truth and every way 
unreprovable in his life and conversation." [Ch. Rec. in 
Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. iv. p. 10.] Mr. Reyner was settled 
in 1636, and continued his useful labors among them for 
eighteen years. 

Thus far the history of the church at Plymouth is the 
history of all the churches composing this Conference ; 
for, with a single exception, (and that but a partial one,) 
they were all embosomed in it, and have one after another 
grown out of it. like so many banyan trees, successively 
taking root from the spreading limbs of one mother trunk. 

The first that went out was the church of Duxbury, in 
1632, — though without any stated ministry, except per- 
haps Elder Brewster's, till the arrival of Rev. Ralph 
Partridge in 1636. He was driven from England by 
Archbishop Laud for non-conformity. As an index of 
his rank among the able divines of that day, he was 
appointed, with John Cotton of Boston, and Richard 
Mather of Dorchester, to draw up a model of church 



11 

government, which, in 1648, was adopted as the Cam- 
bridge Platform. The date of his settlement in Duxbury 
is not known ; but he was in the pastoral office when the 
town was incorporated, June 7, 1637, and continued there, 
through many hardships, till his death in 1658. [Math. 
Magn. vol. i. b. iii. p. 365.] 

The next colony from the Plymouth church was the 
present South church in Marshfield. The request from 
the Duxbury members, though clearly necessitated by the 
great inconvenience of getting their families to meeting 
three miles by water and twice as far by land, had been 
granted with some reluctance. There was a fear of weak- 
ening the mother church. It was a natural feeling, and 
is common now — much more common than that noble, 
persistent purpose of the emigrant members to sustain the 
gospel in their new settlement, though far less able than 
those they left behind. But to prevent farther depletion, 
and at the same time to meet the demands of an increas- 
ing number of families and flocks, they resorted to the 
expedient of " granting farms at a place called Green's 
Harbor, (now Marshfield,) where no allotments had been 
made ; " with the understanding that the owners would 
still make Plymouth their home, and husband their distant 
farms by means of servants and hired help. [Prince 
Chron. p. 411.] The result of the experiment was 
exactly the reverse of what was anticipated. These 
Marshfield farmers are almost immediately found organ- 
izing a separate church. The exact date has not been 
preserved ; but in the Plymouth records, " the beginning 
of the church in Marshfield " is assigned to 1632, and is 
there said to be " incorporated soon after Duxbury." 
[Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. iv. p. 11.] For several years they 
must have been destitute of preaching, though not of 
" prophesying," since Governor Winslow was among 
them, who is said to have excelled in that exercise. This 
most enterprising of all the Pilgrim band, in one of his 



12 

visits to England, induced several Welch gentlemen to 
emigrate to Marshfield, among whom was Rev. Richard 
Blinman, who supplied the pulpit for a season. But a 
want of harmony between the old and new settlers soon 
induced him to remove, with most of his countrymen, to 
Gloucester.* The town of Marshfield was incorporated 
March 2, 1641, and the next year Rev. Edward Bulkley, 
son of Rev. Peter Bulkley of Concord, was ordained their 
first pastor, and continued about thirteen years, till called 
to settle as colleague with his aged father. 

The church of Scituate, which stands next in chrono- 
logical order, dates its origin at Southwark, London, in 
1616, as the Plymouth church does at Scrooby in 1602. 
But September 27, 1634, is the date of its beginning in 
Scituate. Rev. John Lothrop, and about thirty members 
of the Southwark church, (a majority of the whole,) 
fleeing from persecution in England, landed at Boston, 
and on the day above named "proceeded to the wilder- 
ness called Scituate," where others from Plymouth, who 
had belonged to Mr. Lothrop's church in Kent and 
London, had already begun a settlement. These were 
re-united with their newly arrived brethren soon after. f 



* Rev. Messrs. Wilson of Boston, and Mather of Dorchester, were 
called to settle the controversy. So far as the result has come to light, it 
would seem that the cause of the trouble was, " a few gifted brethren 
made learning or prudence of little avail. They compared him (that is, 
the brethren compared Mr. Blinman) to a piece of new cloth in an old 
garment." — Felt's Eccl. Hist, vol. i. p. 445 ; also, Baylies' Hist. Plym. Col. 
vol. ii. p. 285. 

t The early records of Mr. Lothrop's church were supposed to be lost. 
But Rev. H. Carleton, of Barnstable, has recently discovered a copy of 
them among Pres. Styles's manuscripts in the library of Yale College. I 
am allowed, by my obliging brother, who has transcribed the whole, to 
make the following extracts. 

" Touching the Congregational Church of Christ at Scituate. — The 28th 
of September, 1634, being the Lord's day, I came to Scituate the night 
before, and on the Lord's day spent my first labors, forenoon and after- 
noon.— Upon the 23d of November, 1634, our brethren of Scituate, that 
were members at Plymouth, were dismissed from their membership in case 



13 

Some difference of views among the members of his 
flock on the subject of baptism operating against the 
pastor's usefulness, he removed to Barnstable with the 
majority of his congregation at the end of five years, and 
thus founded the First church in that ancient town. The 
residue immediately re-organized, and called Rev. Charles 
Chauncy to become their pastor. He was settled in 1641, 
but against the remonstrance of nearly half the church. 
He remained twelve years. Soon after his dismission, he 
was elected President of Harvard College in place of Rev. 
Henry Dunster, who, in turn, took Mr. Chauncy's place 
at Scituate. Meanwhile, the disaffected portion of the 
church had withdrawn, and formed themselves into 
another, the present Unitarian church in South Scituate ; 
though no traces of Unitarianism were found in it for 
nearly a century and a half from that time, as will be 
noticed in its proper place. This occurred in 1642 ; but 
the first pastor, Rev. William Witherell, was not ordained 
till September 2, 1645. 

The third church that colonized from Plymouth (con- 
sidering those in Scituate as derived in great part from 
other sources) was that of Eastham, on Cape Cod, which 
was gathered in 1646, after a long and earnest discussion, 
involving the grave question of breaking up the whole 
establishment at Plymouth, and removing bodily to some 
other place. But sober counsels prevailed; and those 
who insisted on a removal were peaceably dismissed, and 
went to the Cape. 

they joined in a body at Scituate. — Upon January 8, 1634, we had a day of 
humiliation, and then at night joined in covenant, so many of us as had 
been in covenant before," — thirteen in all. This last transaction has 
usually been regarded as a re-organization of Mr. Lothrop's church, and 
its date on these shores has been fixed accordingly. But all the circum- 
stances taken into the account, leave no room to doubt, that the covenant- 
ing on January 8, 1634, 0. S., answering to January 18, 1635, X. S., was 
only the re- covenanting of those who had formerly been in covenant under 
Mr. Lothrop, and now removed their relations from Plymouth to Scituate. 






14 

And here the distressed state of this parent church — 
" the mother of us all "—as recorded by her faithful 
chronicler, Mr. Nathaniel Morton, 

" Implores the passing tribute of a sigh." 

The older members dying, the younger and more active 
moving away, " this poor church," says he, " was left like 
an ancient mother, grown old and forsaken of her chil- 
dren (though not in their affections, yet) in regard to their 
bodily presence and personal helpfulness. Thus she that 
had made many rich, became herself poor." It may be 
added, in this connection, as a circumstance affecting all 
the other churches, that the first crop of religious heresies 
in New England was now ripening under the husbandry 
of a few zealous Antinomians and Quakers ; while many 
well disposed church members, influenced by busy sect- 
aries of lower degree, were unconsciously weakening the 
power of resistance to these incoming errors, by crying 
down a learned and salaried ministry. This latter evil, 
which always cures itself before it quite kills a church, 
unsettled nearly all the ministers in the country a few 
years later. In Plymouth it drove away Mr. Reyner, and 
kept the pastoral office vacant fifteen years, till the settle- 
ment of Rev. John Cotton in 1669, who was eminently 
'a repairer of the breach ; a restorer of paths to dwell in.' 
He found the church reduced to forty-seven resident 
members ; and during the first four of his thirty years' 
ministry, it had increased to a hundred and twenty. 

Nothing more was attempted by way of church-exten- 
sion till 1694, when a number from Plymouth, with some 
from other places, were organized into the church of 
Middleborough, having held separate worship there ten or 
twelve years before, under the lead of Deacon Samuel 
Fuller, one of the Plymouth members ; who was ordained 
to the pastoral office when the church was constituted. 

A similar process had been in operation, for a shorter 



15 

time, in Plympton, (then a part of Plymouth,) under the 
direction of Mr. Isaac Cushman, a ruling elder. In 
1698, they too were formed into a separate church, and 
Elder Cushman was ordained as their first pastor, and 
continued his useful labors to the age of eighty-four. 

The next church organized within the bounds of the 
Pilgrim Conference, was that of Pembroke, about 1711. 
The town was incorporated that year, and their first 
minister, Rev. Daniel Lewis, was ordained on the 3d of 
December, the year following. He continued in the 
pastoral office thirty-nine years. 

The north part of Plymouth (now Kingston) " was set 
off into a distinct society " in 1717, and after three years 
of occasional preaching they settled Rev. Joseph Stacy in 
1720, who labored there twenty-one years. 

The church in Hanover was gathered in 1728, one year 
after the incorporation of the town. Rev. Benjamin 
Bass was ordained on the same day, and labored there 
twenty-eight years. 

The residents of what is now Carver, began to sustain 
preaching by themselves in 1732. The date of the 
church formation is not known ; but their first pastor, 
Rev Othniel Campbell, was settled May 13, 1733. 

In 1734, nineteen members of the church in Middle- 
borough, were dismissed for the purpose of forming a 
church in Halifax. These, with others from Plymouth, 
were organized on the first of October the year following, 
and Rev. John Cotton was ordained over them. He re- 
mained twenty years, till the failure of his voice compelled 
him to resign the work of the ministry. 

In 1731, that part of Plymouth called Manomet Ponds 
was made a " precinct," and had separate worship occa- 
sionally till November 8, 1738, when twenty-five mem- 
bers were organized as the present Second church in 
Plymouth, and Rev. Jonathan Ellis was ordained their 
first pastor. 



16 

The Second, or North church in Marshfield, (now 
Unitarian,) was separated from the First, or South, in 
1739. Rev. Atherton Wales was installed their first pas- 
tor at the same time, and after a ministry of fifty years, 
died among them at the age of ninety-two. 

The church in Hanson was gathered August 31, 1748, 
and Rev. Gad Hitchcock, D. D., was ordained in October 
following. He held the pastoral office in that town about 
fifty-five years, and died at the age of eighty-three. 

We have now reached an important era in the history 
of these churches, as also in the religious history of our 
whole country — the era of the "Great Awakening," in 
the days of Edwards and Whitefield. And as we have 
nothing more to record for the next forty years in regard 
to church-extension, let us pause in our course just to look 
around and note the effects of that revival within the 
bounds of this Conference. Here were fourteen churches 
and fourteen pastors to be wrought upon by that deep 
religious movement, which, in one way or another, 
agitated all New England from 1734 to 1742, — resulting 
in the hopeful conversion of souls, variously estimated in 
numbers from 25,000 to 50,000. Did these Pilgrim 
churches and their pastors favor this work of God, or 
frown upon it? Did they receive the blessing, or the 
curse, that is said to have so invariably followed the 
reception or the rejection of Mr. Whitefield and his 
co-adjutors ? 

After the lapse of a century it may not be easy to 
answer these questions fully. But it is gratifying to find 
so much evidence that the pastors, at least, were almost 
unanimously in sympathy with the revival. It is well 
known that a strong testimony was uttered against it in 
the " Convention of Congregational Ministers of Massa- 
chusetts," at their annual meeting, May 25, 1743. It is 
also known that the friends of the revival met the next 
day and agreed to hold another Convention ; which was 



17 

accordingly held in Boston, " the day after Commence- 
ment." In the " Testimony and Advice " which they 
put forth, and subscribed, each with his own hand, like 
the signers of the Declaration of American Independence, 
they say : "We think it our indispensable duty, in this 
open and conjunct manner to declare, to the glory of sove- 
reign grace, our full persuasion, either from what we have 
seen ourselves, or received upon credible testimony, that 
there has been a happy and remarkable revival of religion 
in many parts of this land, through an uncommon divine 
influence ; after a long time of great decay and deadness, 
and a sensible and very awful withdraw of the Holy 
Spirit." 

In Prince's Christian History, [pp. 164-66,] the names 
of all the signers of this declaration are preserved ; and 
among them are Nathaniel Leonard, of the First church, 
Plymouth ; Jonathan Ellis, of the Second church, Plym- 
outh ; Nathaniel Eells, of the Second church, Scituate ; 
Samuel Veazie, of Duxbury ; Samuel Hill, of the First 
church, Marshfield ; Othniel Campbell, of Carver ; Benja- 
min Bass, of Hanover ; Thaddeus McCarty, of Kingston ; 
John Cotton, of Halifax ; and Jonathan Parker, of Plymp- 
ton ; — ten out of the fourteen. Omitting Dr. Hitchcock, of 
Hanson, who was not then settled, there remain but three 
who did not subscribe ; nor is there any evidence that 
these opposed the revival. 

But this cannot be affirmed of all the churches. The 
mischievous influence of the " Half-way Covenant " in 
letting in unregenerate members, and the Arminian notions 
respecting the nature of regeneration and the way of 
effecting it, had leavened the churches to a greater extent 
than any one could know without some searching test. 
Such a test was found in the new style of preaching in- 
troduced by Edwards and Whitefield, and the Tennants, 
especially the increased prominence and sharper point that 
was given to the old doctrine of the " new birth," as 
3 



18 

a pre-requisite for admission to heaven, and therefore 
for entering the church on earth. It was " a rock of 
oftence," at which not a few members of these churches 
stumbled. Several of the pastors published full and 
deeply interesting narratives of the revival in their con- 
gregations ; and they all speak of strong opposition. 
Mr. Cotton, of Halifax, says, that in his place " the great- 
est cry comes from those that are of Arminian principles and 
of irregular lives." * In Kingston, the opposers succeeded 
at length in driving away the pastor. Mr. Leonard, of 
Plymouth, says: "A violent opposition presently arose and 
prevailed so far, that a number of this congregation went 
out from us into a distinct society, and nine of the brethren 
asked a dismission from us, to embody into a church by 
themselves." 

This church, however, unlike the other six that had 
colonized before it, was doomed to an early death. At 
the installation of their first pastor, Rev. Thomas Frink, 
November 7. 1744, Dr. Chauncy, of Boston, preached a 
sermon, or rather a phillipic, as it might be called, against 
Mr. Whitefield and the revival. After a short ministry — 
four years — Mr. Frink was succeeded by Rev. Jacob 
Bacon, who continued till 1776, when the congregation 
had become so reduced that, by mutual consent, he was 
dismissed, the church disbanded, and the meeting-house 
demolished."!" The society was never large, though com- 
prising much of the wealth and fashion of the town. 

* Prince's Christ. Hist. p. 266. Mr. Cotton also observes, that "those 
who have been most opposite to this reformation, have all along betrayed 
an utter aversion to examine things to the bottom;" and pertinently asks, "Is 
this a rational way of acting ? Are these the men that so highly pretend 
to reason ? that laugh at every body else as fools ? If this be reason, to 
judge of things before they know them, may I forever be delivered from 
reason." — p. 264. 

t This meeting-house stood on the north side of Middle street, and was 
called the " lower meeting-house." It was a neat wooden building, with 
a tower and spire in front. 



19 

Had they kept their separate organization, the old church 
would undoubtedly have retained its evangelical character 
to this day. Their return to its bosom, with whatever 
satisfaction regarded at the time, was the cause of its 
melancholy lapse — a warning to those societies in our 
times that make too much account of wealth, and fashion, 
and numbers, and too little of piety, and principle, and 
harmony of views. 

Here we resume the history of church-extension, which, 
from this date assumes a new aspect, as its course is gov- 
erned by new laws of development and progress. The 
uncongenial elements that were mixed, but not combined, 
in the old church of Plymouth, after the seceders went 
back, created no disturbance under the bland and affec- 
tionate, though highly evangelical ministry of the venera- 
ble Dr. Robbins. Respect for age and character, and a 
certain consciousness of their position as returned seced- 
ers, would naturally restrain them from any open expres- 
sion of dislike to the old Puritan doctrines which had been 
instilled into their childhood. But no sooner was the 
aged pastor gathered to his fathers, on the 30th of June, 
1799, than the thing of which he himself had a painful 
presentiment in his last years, came to pass. A new 
style of preaching called " liberal," as distinguished from 
"evangelical," was demanded ; and those who could not 
sympathize with that demand, finding themselves in the 
minority, withdrew from the church to the number of 
fifty-two members, (only one less than half,) and were 
organized, May 12, 1802, as the third church ; and on the 
same day, Rev. Adoniram J-udson was installed their pas- 
tor. It was the eighth and last colony that came forth 
entire from this mother of churches. 

It is a suggestive fact, that this first case of secession 
for the faith of the Pilgrim Fathers, which has since been 
followed by nearly a hundred others in Massachusetts, 
should have occurred in the first church of their planting 



20 

on these shores. It was every way fitting, that this new 
dispensation of self-denial in vindication of God's everlast- 
ing truth, as received through them, should have opened 
where it did ; on the spot made memorable, through all 
coming time, by their heroic self-denials in vindicating the 
same. But it is a sorrowful reflection, that the victory 
which Mr. Robinson achieved over Episcopius, the re- 
nowned pupil and co-adjutor of Arminius himself at 
Leyden, should have been reversed two hundred years 
after, by the triumph of Arminianism over Mr. Robinson's 
church. So mutable is earth! So checkered is the his- 
tory even of Christianity in its progress on earth ! 

At the opening of the present century nearly all the 
churches, and a large proportion of the ministers within 
the bounds of the Pilgrim Conference, were more or less 
tinctured with these Arminian views, mixed also with 
Arian and Socinian notions concerning the character of 
Christ. Some of the churches have since been recovered 
wholly. From others, the evangelical members have 
seceded, not as colonies, but as exiles, to be gathered into 
the nearest evangelical churches in the vicinity, or re- 
organized by themselves. While in others still the old 
Puritan faith suffered such a complete paralysis, that no 
signs of returning life have yet appeared, and Unitarian- 
ism now takes its place. 

It may here be remarked as a historical fact, that Uni- 
tarianism, though not developed in its present form, nor 
even known among us by its present name, till about the 
year 1812, nevertheless had its rise a hundred and fifty 
years before, in the " Half-way covenant," and its first 
outward manifestation in the controversy which arose out 
of the great revival in 1740. The custom which exten- 
sively prevailed, after its sanction by the Synod of 1662, 
of baptizing the children of such as had themselves been 
baptized in childhood, provided they were free from vice, 
and would "own the covenant," though professedly un re- 



21 

generate, naturally led to the full admission into the 
church, of those who were thus already half way in ; not 
because they were converted, but that they might be. It 
was as a means of grace, that the " venerable Stoddard," 
of Northampton, advocated this fatal step — fatal, because 
it would, of necessity, come to be regarded at length, as 
a substitute for grace. 

Thus had Arminianism* been practiced long before it 
was professed ; and had gradually grown into Unitarian- 
ism, which also became prevalent years before it was 
avowed. So prevalent had it become in this part of the 
State, that when the line of separation began to be drawn, 
as it did in ministerial associations soon after the disclo- 
sures of 1812, the pastors of only five, out of the fifteen 
Congregational churches then existing within the bounds 
of this Conference, were prepared to stand forth openly as 
Trinitarians. If any of the other ten were not decidedly 
Unitarian in their views, they chose to be nothing else 
distinctively. 

From this lowest point of depression, the evangelical 
interest has been steadily rising among us, as will now be 
described in the briefest possible way. 

When the pastor of the Second church in Plymouth, 
Manomet Ponds, lapsed into Arianism, about the year 
1813, and shortly after avowed the Unitarian faith, a small 
portion of the church and society withdrew from his min- 
istry, but formed no separate organization. The little 
band meeting for worship on the Sabbath in a private 



* This term is used here, and throughout this discourse, to denote the 
doctrine of do and live, or salvation by works, — a system which dispenses 
with the necessity of regeneration by the Holy Spirit's agency, and is more 
properly named Pelagianism. In this sense of the word, it can hardly be 
affirmed that Arminius himself was an Arminian. But as the word was 
uniformly employed by our Fathers of the last century to indicate these 
Pelagian views, which were coming into the churches, it is thought best to 
retain it in tracing their growth. 



22 

house, with no preaching except an occasional supply from 
the missionary society, slowly but steadily increased, till 
" the Spirit was poured upon them from on high " in the 
summer of 1819. This was the turning point in their 
destiny. The pastor, now nearly deserted by his flock, 
left his post, — which was speedily filled by an evangelical 
preacher, as was also the empty meeting-house by its for- 
mer occupants ; and no trace of Unitarianism now remains 
in the parish. 

Meanwhile another place of worship was opened in the 
neighboring village of Eel-river, (now Chiltonville,) and 
the Fourth Congregational church in Plymouth was form- 
ed, chiefly from the Third, and Rev. Benjamin Whitmore 
was settled over it, October 13, 1818. 

In 1825, the North church in Scituate, growing dissat- 
isfied with the " liberal and Unitarian" preaching of their 
pastor, and his loose way of administering discipline, yet 
finding the majority of the congregation disposed to re- 
tain him as their minister, separated from the parish 
bodily, and were joined to a new society, incorporated for 
that purpose. They also built another meeting-house, 
and on the day of its dedication, November 16, 1826, 
installed Rev. Paul Jewett as their pastor. Simultane- 
ously with these energetic movements a revival of religion 
was experienced, which added to the church a larger 
number than they had left behind when they came off 
from the parish. 

Not far from this time the churches in Hanson and South 
Marshfield, both imperiled by the insidious entrance of 
Arminian and Unitarian sentiments " while men slept," 
were both delivered by the providential settlement of 
evangelical ministers, when the waning interests of 
Orthodoxy had nearly lost their preponderance. 

In Kingston, the evangelical members were less fortu- 
nate. After years of patient waiting and earnest praying, 



23 

a little band of six males and nine females, mostly seced- 
ers from the old church, were gathered into a separate 
body March 19, 1828, under the ministry of Rev. Plum- 
mer Chase. Their first pastor, Rev. John W. Salter, was 
ordained April 29, 1829. 

Under similar auspices a still smaller remnant, number- 
ing only thirteen in all, were gathered out of the old 
church in North Marshfield, and organized July 4, 1835, 
as the representatives of the ancient faith in that place. 

In the Congregational churches of Duxbury, Pembroke 
and South Scituate, that faith has become extinct, except 
as it may yet live in the breast of here and there an aged 
Simeon, or a praying Anna, still " waiting for the conso- 
lation of Israel," — which, as God is true, and the churches 
of this Pilgrim Conference are worthy of the trust com- 
mitted to their hands, will at length come. 

I have only to add, in completing this sketch, that a 
fifth church in Plymouth, named the Robinson, was 
gathered chiefly from the third, in 1829 ; which, after 
enjoying the ministry of several able preachers, has lately 
disbanded and the members returned ; while two others 
of the same faith, viz. : a second one in Chiltonville, and 
a second in Hanover, have been organized, — making now 
fourteen evangelical Congregational churches in these 
twelve towns, where, at the opening of this Unitarian con- 
troversy, there were but five that could be counted as such. 
To illustrate the severity of the conflict through which 
they have come, it may here be stated that seven of these 
fourteen churches have been compelled to throw themselves 
on the Massachusetts Home Missionary Society for help, 
without which they must have died in the fight, if indeed 
they had ever entered the lists. They are all, at present, 
in a condition of vigorous self-support, and ready " to 
comfort others with the same comfort wherewith they 
themselves have been comforted of God." 



24 

Having drawn out this sketch to an unexpected length, 
(which yet is too summary to satisfy,) I will suggest only 
two or three of the many practical hints which a reflecting 
mind may derive from it. 

1. It warns us against a certain uniform tendency in 
churches to lapse — or at least to pass from a higher to 
a lower standard of faith and practice. If there ever was 
a fraternity of churches on earth that seemed to be placed, 
by their position and character, beyond all danger of this 
sort, they were those which fled from the infected moral 
atmosphere of the old world to the untrodden shores of 
the new, purged as they had been by the fires of persecu- 
tion, and most thoroughly evangelical in their views of 
Christian doctrine and duty. Yet scarcely had the first 
generation passed away before signs of declension were 
seen ; and many a departing elder who still remembered 
" the days of old, the years of ancient times," left his 
dying admonition.* These warnings, if not unheeded, 
were generally unavailing, and grew fainter as degeneracy 

* Passages like the following might be cited to almost any extent :— 
" Are we not this day making graves for all our blessings and comforts ? 
Have we not reason to expect that ere long our mourners will go up and 
down, and say, How is New England fallen ! The land that was a land of 
holiness, hath lost her holiness ! that was a land of righteousness, hath lost 
her righteousness ! that was a land of peace, hath lost her peace ! that was 
a land of liberty, is now in sore bondage ! " — Rev. Thomas Walley's Election 
Sermon at Plymouth, in 1669. 

" O New England ! New England ! look to it that the glory be not 
removed from thee ! for it begins to go ! O tremble ; for it is going, it is 
gradually departing ! Although there is that of divine glory still remain- 
ing which we ought to be very thankful for, nevertheless much of it is 
gone. You that are aged persons, and can remember what New England 
was fifty years ago, that saw these churches in their first glory ; is there 
not a sad decay and diminution of that glory ! How is the gold become 
dim ! the most fine gold changed ! Yea, how are the golden candlesticks 
changed in New England ! Alas, what a change is there in that which 
hath been our glory ! There is sad cause to fear that greater departures of 
that glory are hastening upon us." — Dr. I. Mather, in his book, " The 
Glory departed from New England." See also Prince's Ch. Hist. pp. 66 — 99. 



25 

increased — a lower standard of morals all the while in- 
ducing a laxer theology, and vice versa. 

" Errors in life breed errors in the brain, 
And these reciprocally those again." 

Thus did these churches gradually depart from the faith 
and practice of their founders, though not without fre- 
quent checks and self-reproaches ; till, by a continual 
divergence from the true orbit, gravitation turned the 
other way, and departure from old standards was reckoned 
progress. However deplorable the fact may be, there is 
nothing new, nothing strange in it. The same tendency 
and the same results can be traced back through all time, 
— the people of God devoutly singing his praise, and then 
stupidly forgeting his works ; till wrought upon by some 
new reformative agency, they again renew their covenant 
vows, which again they gradually forget ; while Prophets, 
and Apostles, and Christian Martyrs are beseeching them 
with tears of earnestness, to be on their guard. When 
will the admonition be heeded? When shall we once 
learn, that " eternal vigilance " is the price, not of liberty 
only, but of pure religion, and that the first divergent 
step is the one to be avoided, if we would effectually shun 
the perils of apostasy ? 

2. Notwithstanding this backsliding tendency, which 
our churches have in common with others, they also have 
an immense recuperative power, which is not so common. 
From the foregoing sketch it would seem that the time 
was, and within the last forty years, when evangelical 
preaching was nearly silenced throughout the limits of the 
Pilgrim Conference ; when ten out of the fifteen pastors 
in the Congregational churches then existing here had 
dropped the Puritan faith from their system, leaving only 
five who stood forth in its defence. At present the whole 
number of Congregational Churches on the same ground 
is twenty j and fourteen of them sustain evangelical 
4 



26 

preaching — leaving but six who do not. Thus, while 
ours are nearly three times the number they were forty 
years ago, the others are scarcely more than half as many 
as they then counted.* 

And here it may be stated, that those five churches 
which represented the evangelical interest on this ground 
forty years ago, were of the feeblest class, numbering less 
than four hundred members in the aggregate, and without 
a dollar of parish funds on which to rely in paying their 
ministers' scanty support, which, by the by, was not quite 
$400 per annum, on the average. Now, the fourteen 
evangelical churches among us, though a large proportion 
of them are in a state of infancy, number nearly one 
thousand members ; and after having built twelve meet- 
ing-houses during this time, are paying an average salary 
of $600. Let it be considered, too, that just one half of 
these churches have actually been recovered either with or 
without the loss of meeting-houses and parish funds, from 
a lapsed condition, — a much more difficult achievement 
than simply to colonize in a new place. 

As a further illustration of this recuperative power in 
our Orthodox Congregational churches, I will add, that 
during the same period, there have been nearly one hun- 
dred other similar cases of recovery in different parts of 
the State — a re-installment of evangelical preaching, if 
not in the same pulpit, yet in the same place, where it had 
been silenced. In 1810, there were three hundred and 
sixty Congregational churches in Massachusetts, of which 
one hundred and seventeen were found to have renounced 
the evangelical faith when the line was subsequently 
drawn between the Trinitarian and Unitarian denomina- 



* The whole number of churches, of all denominations, within the terri- 
torial bounds of the Pilgrim Conference, is now 52 ; viz., 14 Evangelical 
Congregational; 11 Methodists; 9 Baptist; 8 Universalist ; 7 Unitarian; 
1 Episcopalian ; 1 Christian, and 1 Second Advent ;— of which 35, at least, 
are generally considered as holding evangelical views. 



27 

tions, — leaving us only two hundred and forty-three. 
Our present number is four hundred and seventy, (having 
nearly doubled,) with a membership of about sixty-eight 
thousand, which is probably three times as large as it 
was then.* 

These facts certainly indicate a remarkable power of 
self-recovery — a vigor of constitution, as we should call 
it in the human system, favoring the physician in his 
effort to throw off disease. This power, no doubt, is 
mainly the force of evangelical truth, always " mighty 
through God, to the pulling down of strong holds," and 
the building up of feeble churches. But even the truth of 
God does not work out its full results without appropriate 
conditions and appliances. And we cannot doubt that 
the scriptural simplicity of our ecclesiastical order has 
been greatly helpful in repairing the breach and restoring 
the old paths. Truth needs no decrees of ecumenic 
councils to enforce her teachings ; no heavy artillery of 
prelatic conventions, or general assemblies, to help her 
beat down the strong holds of error. These defences, 
moreover, can be just as easily turned against the truth, 
as they often have been — oftener, perhaps, than other- 
wise. Her spontaneous impulse is to put them all aside, 
as David did Saul's cumbersome armor when going to 
meet Goliath. She seeks an open field and the untram- 
meled use of her own heaven-appointed sling and stone. 
This is just what she found among the Congregational 
churches of New England in the day of her battle here, 
and what she will always find where pure Congregation- 
alism prevails. 

3. The churches composing this Conference, and all 
others in the land of like precious faith and order, have 
every thing to encourage them in further efforts " to raise 

* The Unitarian churches have, meanwhile, grown to 165, of which 
about 120 were founded by the Puritan fathers, or their Orthodox descend- 
ants, the remainder having been started by Unitarian enterprise alone. 



28 

up the foundations of many generations." Their past 
history inspires the most animating hope of their future 
progress, and is itself a mighty means of securing it. The 
remembrance of John Robinson and his achievements; of 
New England's founders and their fortitude ; of the first 
Congregational churches in this country, and their invin- 
cible faith, will act on their descendants through all 
coming time as an incentive to piety and a rebuke to 
degeneracy. 

" Though dead, they speak in reason's ear, 
And in example live ; 
Their faith and hope and mighty deeds 
Still fresh instruction give." 

These precious memories becoming daily more vivid, will 
not only render the faith through which they " subdued 
kingdoms, wrought righteousness and obtained promises," 
ever dear to those who still hold it, but will also arm them 
with fresh courage in its defence, and gain new converts 
to its side. Some of us can remember when the honest, 
conscientious adherence of these Pilgrim churches to the 
religious doctrines and practices of their founders, was 
called bigotry — a word that drove away many from their 
ranks, or frightened them into silence. But where is now 
the man, with the blood of the Pilgrims in his veins, and 
their spirit in his soul, who could be terrified by that 
harmless word, or would object to passing for such a bigot, 
if to avoid it he must stand before heaven and earth as a 
recreant to the principles of such Fathers ? It was once 
thought strange, and by those too who would go to Ply- 
mouth Rock annually to celebrate the deeds of their Pu- 
ritan ancestors, that any body should care to preserve that 
Puritan religion which gave birth to those deeds, and 
which alone can reproduce them. But there is a larger 
number now, who think it more strange that intelligent 
men and women, of consistent views on all other subjects. 



29 

should hold such absurdities on this, — like inconsiderate 
children regaling themselves on the delicious fruit of a 
tree in their father's garden, which, in their childish phi- 
losophy, would be just as fruitful if the trunk and roots 
were gone. Formerly an organized effort, through home 
missions, or otherwise, to succor the tempted, to strengthen 
the weak, or to recover the lost, in the fraternity of evan- 
gelical Congregational churches, was deemed a conspiracy 
against the public peace ; as if obedience to the great nat- 
ural law of self-preservation was rebellion. But common 
sense is returning, and with it a more liberal spirit. Should 
the evangelical men and women of any community in the 
State be disposed now to form themselves into a Congre- 
gational church and society, to support a preacher of their 
own faith, it would create no riot, and probably provoke 
no insult. 

These altered and alleviated circumstances challenge 
our gratitude to God and man. They also encourage our 
hopes in regard to the future, especially when viewed in 
connection with the habits of Christian activity and en- 
durance, to which the members of our churches became 
so thoroughly inured under the less genial skies of other 
days. Those struggles for dear life, in which churches, 
scarcely able themselves to stand, were called upon to hold 
up others that were actually fainting, have given them 
incomparably more strength, more power of self-propaga- 
tion than all their lost meeting-houses and parish funds 
together would afford, were they now at their disposal. 
It has accustomed their sympathies to flow out toward the 
weak, by imposing on them the necessity of bearing one 
another's burdens. It has taught them to give. Who 
does not know that there is a habit of beneficence, as there 
is also a habit of parsimony, and that both are strength- 
ened by use ? Yet how few have ever fallen into the 
practice of an easy, cheerful generosity from mere spon- 
taneity ! When would the evangelical Congregational 



30 

churches of Massachusetts have reached the point of giv- 
ing $200,000 per annum, in diffusing the gospel over the 
earth, as they are actually now giving, if they had not 
been schooled to it under the hard hand of necessity ? 
We cannot over-estimate the value of these rough and 
painful experiences to our churches, considered as a pre- 
parative for the great work which Heaven has assigned 
them, as repairers of the breach ; as restorers of paths to 
dwell in. 

It is much to be regretted that a truthful history of 
these churches cannot be given without reviving the recol- 
lection of some things which our Unitarian friends and 
ourselves alike would willingly forget. But they are self- 
registered facts, like volcanic eruptions and inundations of 
the ocean in the physical world j and as, in the latter 
case, whatever new formations may supervene, the geol- 
ogist still finds the indelible foot-prints of fire and»lood, 
which he is bound to notice in explaining the present 
phenomena of the earth ; so in the former, will the his- 
toriographer of these Congregational churches find imper- 
ishable evidence of transactions and events, which he 
cannot ignore if he would, as the existing state of things 
cannot be made intelligible without referring to them. 
Far from us be the wish to re-open the dying embers of 
former strifes. But when God sends help in answer to 
agonizing prayer ; when his afflicted people cry unto him 
" out of the depths," and are delivered, who shall forbid 
them to speak of " the horrible pit and the miry clay," 
from which his almighty arm has lifted them ? 



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